Who is Kate Sinclaire?

Kate originally hailed from Montreal, with her family moving to Winnipeg in late 1991. She resided in the suburb of Transcona, graduating from Transcona Collegiate Institute in 2003 and moving on to study sociology and philosophy at the University of Manitoba. She has called the downtown core of Winnipeg home since 2003.

Kate (right) and a pal in high school, rocking the 2003 style.

Unfortunately, when Kate was about the age of 20, she was the victim of revenge porn at the hands of an ex-partner. He had uploaded, to anonymous message boards, videos of some of their more intimate moments. Kate stumbled upon them. Stunned and left paralyzed by the video she saw playing back and the comments that followed the clip, her life ground to a halt.

After settling out of court, Kate realized that nothing was going to truly undo the fact that the clips had been published online. She would need to do something to reclaim her sexuality and feel comfortable with her own body again. Years of her life were spent in toxic relationships in which her partners would compare her body to the typical “porn body”, asking why she didn’t look or perform like them. This of course created an anti-porn sentiment in her in early years. This new clarity, however, showed her that the problem lay with abusive, manipulative male partners and not with people performing in porn. And that, perhaps, reclaiming her own sexuality through porn was a way to actively reject the shame of having someone else control your sexuality.

It was during her time at the U of M that she began to be exposed to concepts of intersectional feminism. Along with her new attitude toward nudity and open sexuality, Kate decided to start doing some nude modelling. She shopped around, looking for sites that best represented how she saw the world. The closest having been NoFauxxx, but issues with the border meant that things were definitely not going to move quickly. Instead, Kate decided that she would start up her own, Canadian-based, nudie website.

Cherrystems.com got its name from a high school friend of Kate’s, after a long livejournal conversation (oh yes, livejournal was instrumental in the building of Cherrystems). A team was assembled that would work for free or favours, and the project was set in motion. It took approximately 2 years for Cherrystems to become a reality, but it fully launched in 2008 with a team of amazing models and behind-the-scenes workers. The site launched as and has continued to be a philanthropic business, donating all profits to local community groups, shelters, sex worker rights organizations, and to individuals associated with Cherrystems that are furthering their education and exposure to the porn industry in Canada. Kate has still never taken a cent from the site, to redirect the cash to where it can be used best. All models are welcome to create their own narratives in sets of 35-70 photos. Cherrystems accepts models of all backgrounds, genders, shapes, sizes, colours, ages (over 18), and sexualities.

In approximately 2013, model Marie Prairie began to challenge the soft core nature of Cherrystems, asking why Winnipeg couldn’t have both a sex positive feminist soft core site AND a hardcore one. Her brilliance wore off, and Kate began laying the groundwork for what would become Ciné Sinclaire. This production company would be focused on documenting pleasure the way that it happens, rather than constructing a narrative from popular tropes, stereotypes and gender roles. Ciné Sinclaire’s porn would not be unlike the soft core porn of Cherrystems – influenced by the performers, with their agency and comfort at the forefront.

Ciné Sinclaire launched on January 1st, 2016 at 12:00am central time. In other words, it launched at midnight on New Year’s.

Kate launches Ciné Sinclaire from a friend’s kitchen 12:00am on January 1, 2016.

In between, Kate has married some guy named Aaron, lives in a barn in Winnipeg, has a studio in the Exchange District, and has spoken at Playground Conference in Toronto, Catalyst Con Chicago, Gender Fest Winnipeg, and has appeared on numerous podcasts, radio and television shows. Her work has been written about in the Globe and Mail, Winnipeg Free Press, The Uniter, The Manitoban, and more.

For media inquiries, email kate@cherrystems.com.

Enjoy!

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3 comments

I read an article written on Kate Sinclaire and it is said that she was compiling a list of resources and regulations for the Porn industry in Canada. My partners and I our starting a porn company and I would love to see that list but I can not find it anywhere. I am having so much trouble finding the information myself as this is brand new territory for me. If you could please help me it that would be awesome. Thanks.